PAWTUCKET – Toy and game-maker Hasbro Inc. has teamed up with the R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation to introduce single-stream recycling at all of its Ocean State facilities.

To date, Hasbro is the largest business to formally adopt the new recycling program, which it did after a successful pilot program in 2012.

“Environmental sustainability is a crucial component of Hasbro’s corporate social responsibility strategy, and the addition of single-stream recycling complements our many waste reduction programs already in place company-wide,” Duncan Billing, Hasbro’s global chief development officer, said in prepared remarks.

“Hasbro is proud to work with Rhode Island Resource Recovery Center to create a more sustainable Rhode Island business community,” added Billing.

According to a Hasbro release, RIRRC opened the state’s first single-stream recycling facility in 2012 as part of an effort to improve recycling rates and reduce the amount of waste sent to Rhode Island’s landfill.

Hasbro said that in 2011, Rhode Island’s average recycling rate was 21.7 percent, nearly 12 points below the national average.

A representative from the RIRRC said a more accurate figure of Rhode Island’s recycling rate is 32.8 percent when compared to the EPA’s national rate and Rhode Island’s “mandatory recyclables” list.

“This rate is more “apples to apples” with the EPA calculations, which include both household recyclables (bottles, cans, paper, etc) and leaf and yard debris,” Sarah Kite, director of recycling services at RIRRC, said in an e-mail to PBN.

RIRRC updated its facility in June 2012 in order to accommodate single-stream recycling, which makes the recycling process simpler by eliminating the need for customers to sort paper, bottles and cans before delivery. This is part of a Rhode Island-wide effort to improve the state’s recycling rates and RIRRC has already rolled out the program to residential customers.

“Within the first month of operation in the residential sector, recycling volume increased by 7.5 percent,” Kite said in a statement. “With a leading company like Hasbro as an early adopter of the single-stream corporate program, we’re confident that recycling rates will continue to move in a positive direction, helping to create a more sustainable Rhode Island.”

“The move to single-stream recycling supports our ongoing efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, makes it easier for our employees to do their part, and is a natural extension of the many ways in which we give back to the Rhode Island community,” Kathrin Belliveau, Hasbro’s vice president of corporate responsibility, said in a statement.

Get the most up-to-date data on the Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts business community from the PBN List Center. Download and purchase PBN Lists as well as the complete Book of Lists in Excel format.